List of sporting scandals

This is a list of major sports scandals.

American football scandals

  • Minnesota Vikings boat party scandal (2005) – a sex party involving several members of the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League (NFL)
  • National Football League player conduct controversy (2007–present) – various off the field incidents involving American football athletes from the NFL, including Adam "Pacman" Jones, Terry "Tank" Johnson, Chris Henry, Ben Roethlisberger, Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson, who earned suspensions as a result.
  • 2007 New England Patriots videotaping controversy (2007) – the New England Patriots were disciplined for videotaping the opposing team's coach's signals. Coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000 and the New England Patriots were fined $250,000 and lost their 2008 1st round draft pick.
  • New Orleans Saints bounty scandal (2012) – the NFL discovered that the New Orleans Saints had operated a secret slush fund from 2009 to 2011 that paid "bounties" to defensive players for big plays during games, most controversially for injuring opponents. The scheme was allegedly organized by a number of players plus defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, with the acquiescence of head coach Sean Payton. Shortly after the investigation came to light, Williams was accused of running similar schemes while he was defensive coordinator of the Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans and Washington Redskins, as well as the head coach of the Buffalo Bills. The league suspended Williams indefinitely and Payton for one year and suspended the Saints' general manager and another assistant for parts of the 2012 season. Jonathan Vilma, a Saints player who had a major role in the scheme and reportedly offered a $10,000 bounty on Brett Favre, was suspended for the entire season and three other players were suspended for parts of the season. However, in September 2012, an arbitrator overturned the suspensions of the players involved in the affair. Williams' suspension ultimately lasted one year.
  • Deflategate (2015) – during the AFC Championship Game, 11 of the 12 footballs under the Patriots' control during the first half were found to be inflated below the level mandated by the rulebook.[1] The case was then closed because of the referees' failure to check the balls prior to the game. Tom Brady was suspended by the NFL for the first 4 games of the 2016 season.[2]

Association football scandals

Baseball scandals

A cartoon ran by various newspapers in 1920 after the breaking of the Black Sox Scandal

Basketball scandals

Boxing scandals

College sporting scandals

  • CCNY point shaving scandal – in 1951, more than 30 players at seven schools were implicated in a point shaving scheme that also had connections to organized crime. The scandal was most strongly linked to the City College of New York because several central figures had played on the school's 1949–50 team that won that season's NCAA tournament and NIT.
  • Boston College basketball point shaving scandal in 1978–79
  • Southern Methodist University football scandal – in 1986, it was revealed that Southern Methodist University boosters gave football players thousands of dollars from a "slush fund" with the knowledge of university administrators. Along with a string of prior NCAA violations, this led the NCAA to level the "death penalty" on the school's football team.
  • University of Michigan basketball scandal – four players, most notably Chris Webber, were paid by a booster to launder money from his gambling operations. In some cases, the payments extended to their high school days.
  • University of Minnesota basketball scandal – the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported the day before the 1999 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament that an academic counseling staffer at the university publicly acknowledged doing coursework for many basketball players.
  • Baylor University basketball scandal – player Patrick Dennehy was murdered by teammate Carlton Dotson. Later, coach Dave Bliss instructed his players to lie to NCAA investigators that Dennehy dealt drugs. In the wake of these events, numerous violations of NCAA rules were discovered.
  • Duke lacrosse case – a stripper hired by members of the Duke University men's lacrosse team for an informal team party in 2006 falsely accused three players of rape.
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill football scandal – over ten football players received improper benefits and committed academic fraud by turning in coursework prepared by tutors.
  • 2011 University of Miami athletics scandal – Yahoo! Sports broke a story in which former Miami booster Nevin Shapiro, currently imprisoned for running a Ponzi scheme, indicated he had provided massive amounts of improper benefits to Miami players and coaches, mostly in football, but also in men's basketball.
  • Penn State child sex abuse scandal – in November 2011, former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was arrested on 40 counts of sexually abusing eight boys over a 15-year period including incidents in Penn State's football facilities. In June 2012, Sandusky was convicted on 45 charges related to the scandal.
  • University of North Carolina academic-athletic scandal – in a follow-up to the UNC football scandal, new accusations of academic fraud arose in relation to the university's African and Afro-American Studies department and men's basketball program, men's football team, women's soccer and other sports as well. The Wainstein Report, an independent report commissioned by UNC, revealed academic fraud that occurred over at least 18 years involving thousands of students and student athletes. Allegedly, thousands of student athletes were directed by the UNC administration to take "sham" classes in order to maintain eligibility. UNC avoided major NCAA penalties, mainly because said sham classes had been offered to the entire student body.
  • 2015 University of Louisville basketball sex scandal – In 2015, Yahoo! Sports reported that a self-described former madam alleged that she had been paid several thousand dollars from 2010 to 2014 by men's basketball staffer Andre McGee for strip shows and sex parties for players and prospective recruits. The NCAA announced the results of its investigation in June 2017, announcing major sanctions that included a 10-year show-cause penalty for McGee and the potential loss of the team's 2013 national title. An appeal by Louisville failed, and in February 2018 the Cardinals became the first Division I basketball program to be stripped of a national championship.
  • Baylor University sexual assault scandal – in 2016, Baylor and its football program were rocked by the revelation that university officials failed to act on numerous alleged sexual and non-sexual assaults by football team members between 2012 and 2016, with one player convicted of felony sexual assault. A later lawsuit filed by a group of victims alleged that 31 football players committed 52 rapes between 2011 and 2014. In the wake of the scandal, head football coach Art Briles was fired, athletic director Ian McCaw resigned, and university president Ken Starr was first demoted and then resigned.
  • 2017–18 NCAA Division I men's basketball corruption scandal – An ongoing FBI investigation into corruption in NCAA men's basketball that has so far resulted in the arrest of 10 individuals, including college assistant coaches from Arizona, Auburn, Oklahoma State, and USC plus high-ranking executives of sports apparel giant Adidas. Other programs initially implicated in the scandal included Louisville, Miami (FL), and South Carolina. Louisville placed head coach Rick Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich (the latter not directly involved in the scandal) on administrative leave, and soon fired both. Further revelations in February 2018 saw more than a dozen additional programs possibly implicated.

Cricket scandals

  • Underarm bowling incident of 1981 - Australia's Trevor Chappell became very infamous when Australia played New Zealand at the MCG on February 1, 1981, Australian captain Greg Chappell instructed the bowler (and younger brother Trevor) to bowl the last ball underarm to New Zealand batsmen Brian McKechnie to prevent him from hitting a six. After the bowl, McKechnie threw his bat onto the ground in disgust and Australia won the match. Negative post reactions then occurred after the match. Trevor Chappell was best remembered for the incident.
  • John the bookmaker controversy – a scandal in which Australia's Mark Waugh and Shane Warne were paid in 1994–95 to provide information on pitch and weather conditions to an Indian bookmaker. The scandal came to light in 1998.
  • South Africa cricket match fixing in 2000 which resulted in the banning from cricket of Hansie Cronje
  • Ball tampering controversy in August 2006 - On August 20, 2006, when Pakistan toured England in the fourth test, the umpires Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove ruled that the Pakistani team had been ball tampering and gave five penalty runs to England then offered them a new ball. After the tea break, Pakistan refused to take the field in protest at the decision. Thus, England won the match by forfeit. After the incident, the whole Pakistan team were busted of the scandal and umpire Darrell Hair was banned from umpiring in cricket.
  • Pakistan cricket spot-fixing scandal – in 2010, three Pakistan players—team captain Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir—were accused of involvement in a spot-fixing scheme in which they allegedly accepted large sums of money to influence specific events within a match, as opposed to an actual match result. After an investigation, the ICC banned all three from the sport for periods from 5 to 10 years. Later, Butt and Asif were tried in a London court and found guilty of charges related to the scheme, whilst Amir pleaded guilty to similar charges in the same court. All received prison sentences ranging from 6 to 30 months.
  • 2013 Indian Premier League spot-fixing and betting case
  • 2018 Australian ball-tampering scandal - In 2018, When Australia toured South Africa, Australia's Cameron Bancroft was seen on camera rubbing the ball with a small yellow object then hid the object in his underwear. The umpires then ruled he was ball tampering. It was then found that Australian captain Steve Smith and vice captain David Warner were also found to have been involved in the incident. Smith and Warner were then banned for 12 months from international and domestic cricket while Bancroft was banned for 9 months. Smith was also temporarily banned from captaining Australia while Warner received a life ban from captaining.
  • 2018 Sri Lankan cricket pitch fixing and betting scandal

Doping scandals

Skating scandals

Figure skating scandals

Short track speed skating scandals

  • Cho Jae-beom was convicted for 10.5 years in jail in January 2021 of sexual abuse of multiple Olympic gold medalist Shim Suk-hee.[15]

Gliding scandals

  • During the 2020 Women's World Gliding Championships at Lake Keepit, Australia, the home team captain Terry Cubley (Executive Officer of the GFA) was charged with unsporting behaviour for hacking the official tracking system to bypass the mandatory 15 minute delay and forward real time competitors' positions to his team, granting a tactical advantage. An investigation revealed that Matt Gage had been closely involved with the developers of the tracking system, and was aware of an undocumented back door that allowed the team captain (Terry Cubley) to bypass the 15 minute delay. This real-time information was relayed by the team captain over the radio to the Australian pilots. This was the first time in the sport's history that an entire team had been penalised for unsporting behaviour, with the Competition Director applying a penalty of 25 points per pilot per day. Controversially the pilots involved were spared disqualification only receiving a relatively trivial points reduction (compared to a competing pilot who was disqualified for infringing airspace earlier in the competition). Following a subsequent GFA investigation two of the Australian Team admitted to cheating and the GFA made a formal apology to the FAI and the wider gliding community. Terry Cubley was removed from his role as Vice President of the IGC, but chose to remain as Executive Officer of the GFA . The pilots involved chose to appeal against this decision, resulting in the longest and most comprehensive investigation in the FAIs history. The final judgement [16] described the actions of the pilots as ‘reprehensible’, increased the penalty to disqualification and removed their flights from the competition record. The Appeal Tribunal also recommended the FAI to take further disciplinary action against those involved. Following the Tribunals verdict Lisa Turner (the Australian pilots’ representative to the tribunal) issued a press release re-iterating their denial of cheating, accused the tribunal of bias against the Australian team and announced a further appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport CAS.

Golf scandals

  • Jane Blalock cheating controversy – one of the LPGA Tour's top players, Jane Blalock, was accused of illegally marking her golf ball on the green. She was suspended and fined by the tour, but Blalock in turn filed suit and won an injunction that allowed her to continue playing. Blalock eventually won her lawsuit and she and the LPGA reached an out-of-court settlement.
  • Vijay Singh, a former number one golfer in the world, was suspended from the PGA Tour for using deer antler spray, which violated the PGA Tour Anti-Doping Policy. Likewise in 1985, Vijay Singh was caught erasing his score on a hole and replacing it with a lower score after the scorecard had been signed. Once the rules officials confirmed the allegations, Singh was banned from the Asian Tour. To this day, Singh has not acknowledged that he cheated.[17]

Gymnastics scandals

Horse racing scandals

  • Show jumping horse killings – from 1975 to 1995, wealthy owners and trainers of show jumping horses conspired to electrocute and otherwise kill over-valued as well as under-performing animals in a 20-year-long scheme to defraud insurance companies. Crimes also committed during this equestrian sports scandal include extortion, mail fraud, animal cruelty and the murder of at least one human being.
  • Fine Cotton/Bold Personality ring-in – a 1984 betting scam in which the conspirators, which included some elite figures in Australian Thoroughbred racing, substituted the far more talented Bold Personality for Fine Cotton in a low-class race. The scheme was discovered immediately after the race and the investigation led to lifetime bans for six individuals and bans of more than a decade for at least two more.
  • 2020 Horse racing doping scam – the scam was revealed in March 2020,[18] when the FBI cracked down several top names in american horse racing. Initially, 27 people (trainers and veterinarians) were charged with doping, which later increased to 29 people.[19][20][21]

Ice hockey scandals

  • Chicago Blackhawks Sexual Assault Scandal (2010) - Kyle Beach, former NHL player, was sexually assaulted by then assistant coach Brad Aldrich during the 2009-10 Chicago Blackhawks season. Even though the incident was known by the front office, no actions were taken to provide Beach with a proper care and recovery. The scandal was under the radar for almost a decade when Beach decided to formally expose the incident.

Match-fixing scandals

Motorsport and racing scandals

Olympic Games scandals

Paralympic Games

  • Cheating at the Paralympic Games – in the 2000 Summer Paralympics, athletes from Spain competed and won the gold medal in the Basketball ID event despite the majority of players not having an intellectual disability. The fallout from this scandal saw all events for athletes with intellectual disabilities removed from the next two Summer Paralympics.[26]

Rugby league scandals

  • Melbourne Storm salary cap breach – in 2010, the Melbourne Storm were punished for breaching the salary cap and were stripped of the ability to accumulate points, had their name stripped from the premierships and minor premierships they had gained over the previous four years and forced to pay back millions of dollars of prize money.[27] It is the toughest punishment for a salary cap breach in NRL history.
  • Cronulla Sharks supplements doping scandal – following an extensive investigation by ASADA, players from the Cronulla Sharks were found guilty of having used the banned peptide CJC-1295, resulting in the suspensions of fourteen players. A number of senior staff were dismissed or resigned and several senior club members received penalties and suspensions.[28]
  • Matthew Johns sexual assault allegations – in 2002, while on a trip to New Zealand, Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks player Matthew Johns took part in degrading group sex with a young woman while up to 11 of his teammates joined in. The scandal was reported by the ABC's Four Corners TV series.[29] Johns admitted having consensual sex with the girl and made a public apology on Channel Nine's The Footy Show. Johns was suspended from The Footy Show and was released by the Melbourne Storm as their assistant coach.[30]

Rugby union scandals

Sumo wrestling scandals

Tennis scandals

Russian doping scandal

Volleyball scandals

References

  1. ^ "11 of the 12 footballs deflated". ESPN. 21 January 2015. Retrieved 18 May 2015.
  2. ^ "NFL suspends Brady 4 games; Pats lose picks". 11 May 2015. Retrieved 26 August 2016.
  3. ^ "Новости NEWSru.com :: Скандал на Кубке Содружества: чемпионы Армении отказались играть с азербайджанцами". newsru.com. 19 January 2006.
  4. ^ "Turkish court charges 15 more in Fenerbahce match-fixing scandal". The Guardian. 7 July 2011.
  5. ^ "Şike Davası'nda yeniden yargılama kararı". Sabah. 23 June 2014.
  6. ^ "Ex-Churchill player implicated in Lebanon match-fixing". NewsReporter.in. 28 February 2013. Archived from the original on 19 December 2013. Retrieved 15 June 2013.
  7. ^ Πόρισμα εισαγγελέα Αριστείδη Κορρέα για την ύπαρξη εγκληματικής οργάνωσης στο ποδόσφαιρο (in Greek). Public Prosecutor's Office of District Court Judges. 3 December 2014. p. 12. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
  8. ^ Πόρισμα εισαγγελέα Αριστείδη Κορρέα για την ύπαρξη εγκληματικής οργάνωσης στο ποδόσφαιρο (in Greek). Public Prosecutor's Office of District Court Judges. 3 December 2014. p. 159. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
  9. ^ "HMRC wins Rangers 'big tax case' ruling". BBC News. 2017-07-05. Retrieved 2021-01-12.
  10. ^ "Football Leaks - SPIEGEL ONLINE". www.spiegel.de. Archived from the original on 2018-11-08.
  11. ^ SPIEGEL, Christoph Winterbach, DER (2 March 2019). "Warum die Uefa Manchester City bestrafen muss - DER SPIEGEL - Sport". Der Spiegel (in German). Retrieved 2021-01-12.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ Mackenzie, George (11 April 2017). "Loaded gloves: the dark story of Luis Resto and his illegal fists". The Versed. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
  13. ^ "2016 Summer Olympics: The U.S. dominates Rio Games with 121 medals". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2021-01-12.
  14. ^ Walter, Brad (25 August 2014). "Who 'duped' Cronulla Sharks players and how did they do it?". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 13 October 2016.
  15. ^ May, Tiffany; Kim, Youmi (21 January 2021). "Ex-Coach Sentenced to 10 Years for Raping Star Skater". The New York Times.
  16. ^ "FAI tribunal results" (PDF). www.fai.org. Retrieved 6 December 2021.
  17. ^ "Golf Spelled Backwards*." : The Vijay Singh Cheating Incident. Golf Spelled Backwards, 30 Jan. 2013. Web. 8 May 2015.
  18. ^ "Regulatory – U.S. Trotting News".
  19. ^ "Världsrekordtränare fast i dopningsrazzia".
  20. ^ "Skandalen avslöjad – efter hjälp från FBI".
  21. ^ "Oakes, Surick among 27 facing doping charges".
  22. ^ "Spain in Paralympics scandal". 2000-11-24. Retrieved 2021-01-12.
  23. ^ Ralph, Jon (3 August 2011), "How Melbourne tanked in 2009", Herald Sun, Melbourne, VIC, retrieved 10 November 2011
  24. ^ "John Higgins suspended in snooker bribe probe". BBC. 2 May 2010.
  25. ^ Ruiz, Rebecca R. (9 December 2016). "Russia's Doping Program Laid Bare by Extensive Evidence in Report". The New York Times.
  26. ^ "Intellectual disability ban ends". BBC News. 21 November 2009. Retrieved 26 September 2015.
  27. ^ Barrett, Chris (2010-04-22). "Melbourne Storm stripped of premierships for salary cap breaches". The Age. Retrieved 2021-01-12.
  28. ^ Walter, Brad (2014-08-25). "Who 'duped' Cronulla Sharks players and how did they do it?". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2021-01-12.
  29. ^ "Four Corners - 11/05/2009: Program Transcript". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 2009-05-14.
  30. ^ "Matthew Johns stood down by Melbourne Storm and Channel 9 | Herald Sun". 2009-05-16. Archived from the original on 2009-05-16. Retrieved 2021-01-12.
  31. ^ Benammar, Emily (2009-08-18). "Dean Richards ban: how 'Bloodgate' saga unfolded". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 2009-08-18.
  32. ^ "Davydenko faces betting inquiry". 2007-08-27. Retrieved 2021-01-12.

External links

  • ArmchairGM's Top 25 Sports Scandals
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Match-fixing scandals
American footballAssociation footballAustralian rules footballBadmintonBaseballBasketballCricketHorse racingIce hockeyMotorsportRugby leagueSkatingSumo
  • List of sporting scandals